by Paul Yoder
Yozo finished cleaning up the mess Nomad had made of his tea, picking up his teapot, taking a seat once more. He watched—like a hawk eyeing a mouse—as Arie and Reza struggled to carry Nomad towards the base of the mountain until they were no longer within sight.
4
Temple Grounds
The main cathedral double doors burst open letting a gust of wind and snow angrily shoot through the pews of the great hall.
Lightning cracked, illuminating three figures in the doorway for a moment before the dark veil of night abruptly covered them again.
“Lanereth!” Reza’s frantic voice was cut short as another crack of thunder rumbled through the dark room.
A figure moved hastily towards them from the shadows, unveiling her face as she approached the travel-warn trio, Reza falling to her knees upon seeing that she had found the one she was seeking, laying Nomad’s still body before her, quietly weeping.
The woman looked briefly to Arie before kneeling down to place a hand on Reza’s back who was slumped over Nomad’s body.
“Reza?” a wispy, thin voice said, concern easily showing through the tall figure’s inflection as she looked down to regard the man Reza had fallen over. “Bring him hither, quickly.”
Arie helped Reza to her feet and shouldered half of Nomad’s weight as Reza began to slog along behind the tall figure, halfway dragging Nomad, trying to keep up with the woman Reza had called Lanereth.
They didn’t have to carry Nomad far as the tall woman entered a nearby room and brushed aside a centerpiece of a wreath of laurels, helping to lay Nomad’s limp body down on the oak table.
Placing a hand on his forehead, closing her eyes, Lanereth took in a deep breath and slowly released it, eyes trembling in pain after a moment, Arie and Reza eagerly waiting for the woman to reveal what she thought of Nomad’s health.
She issued a sharp intake of air, hissing as she released her hand from Nomad’s flesh, recoiling and holding her hand as if she had just been stabbed.
“What? What is it?” Reza shouted, latching onto Lanereth’s arm.
Lanereth ripped free from Reza’s grasp and snarled, looking Reza crossly in the eye, “What evil have you brought to this sacred place, child?”
Clutching a silver gleaming amulet dangling from her neck, Lanereth closed her eyes and began praying out loud. A heavenly tone filled the room quickly as her prayer began to increase in volume, almost shouting certain key phrases which began to have an impact on Nomad’s body.
Arie began to take heart as Nomad’s body twitched, then grunted, thinking he was coming around as Lanereth revived him, but Reza knew the prayer she now gave, and it was no prayer of healing, it was an exorcism that she now performed.
Nomad’s head shot up, eyes wide, and let out a bloody roar, deafening Lanereth’s prayer for a moment before she raised her voice so loud that it seemed there to be other angelic mouths assisting her chant.
Nomad strained to get up, but he seemed restrained by some unseen force. His muscles now bulged, his eyes filled with blackness, and he bled slick, dark ooze from his wounds, mouth and eyes. He screamed out in pain and rage.
“Lanereth, wait! You’re hurting him!” Reza called out, but she was so carried away in her zealous chant that Reza’s cry fell unheard.
Arie pushed Reza aside and slugged Lanereth on the jaw, easily knocking the elegant woman to the ground, silencing her chanting prayer.
“Wait! Both of you!” Reza yelled, pushing Arie back while getting between her and Lanereth who had recovered and now bore a look of indignation so wrath-filled that Reza knew retaliation was not off the table.
“Leave these sacred grounds,” Lanereth hissed, a chill quiet unnervingly settling in the room.
“Lanereth—” Reza started, but was cut short by a blinding white light that burst in from the hallway, followed by two pairs of quiet footsteps.
“High Priestess, do you require aid?”
Only Reza was able to see through the blinding light emanating from the two soldiers’ hands, and only she knew the significance of their position as High Guard and the caliber of their skill.
“Oh, she’ll need aid—” Arie seethed, moving to Nomad to guard him.
“No, Arie…,” Reza ordered, turning now to address Lanereth. “I will remove this man from these grounds if you promise to talk with me after he is removed.”
Lanereth paused to consider Reza’s offer for a moment before seething out, “Get that thing out of here.”
Arie waited not another moment, hefting Nomad from the table, carrying him as Reza led her through the door, the blinding light making it almost impossible for Arie to make her way through the building.
Departing the light and leaving the monastery gates, Reza and Arie found a large fir tree with a low-hanging skirt of branches just off the path. The snow, even with the wind’s aid, didn’t quite make it under the great tree’s boughs, and Reza quickly began to construct a bed of needles as Arie lowered their comrade’s body down amidst the dead foliage.
“Should have never come here,” Arie spat.
Reza barked back, “You’re right, you shouldn’t have come here,” then stormed back to the monastery grounds without giving Arie another chance at a retort.
She immediately regretted her last remark as she stormed back through the monastery gates. Though she did not get along with Arie very well, she knew that she would take care of Nomad now, and she knew without her help these last few miles, she would be collapsed with Nomad’s cold body quite a ways back.
Opening the doors once more to the cathedral, Reza stepped in, seeing a sitting figure she knew to be Lanereth, her superior.
She walked down the aisle, emotions awhirl, remembering the years of close tutelage and reverence towards the woman that had, without consideration for the victim, almost put an end to her close companion.
In the end, her oppositional emotions had drained her, and she sat next to Lanereth with a heavy sigh, not sure where to begin her conversation with her former teacher.
“You have been disconnected from the sisterhood for a while now—too long, I fear. Your judgment has become clouded, it seems.”
Lanereth’s words, though few, carried a great deal of weight for Reza. She had been gone many years now from the monastery, or from any other saren. She wondered now if her sojourn into the world had worn poorly on her character.
“Sareth is an exacting deity and does not forgive missteps easily. You know this. To bring a corruption so black into her grounds willingly…this is a grave offense, one I will need to commune with Sareth to learn a recourse for—”
Something inside Reza snapped, falling easily back into her readily provoked temperament, cutting Lanereth off. “I need no recourse for this. Nomad, that one so corrupted now, was not so long ago a hero, defending the peoples of the Plainstate valiantly, and selflessly risking his life to save others, myself included, multiple times. He is a man Sareth would approve of without reservation, I am sure of it. I came here seeking help from Sareth—from you—but what were we greeted with? Banishment without any chance at an explanation. Perhaps it is you whose judgment has become clouded since last we met.”
Her words, she could tell, shocked her former guide, and for a moment, memories of years gone by of her bouts and heated disagreements with Lanereth flooded back. It was the same look of disappointment mixed with indignation etched upon the face of her superiors that accompanied much of her interactions in her early years, being passed from monastery to monastery, High Priestess to High Priestess, each all but giving up on her stubbornness and nonconformity.
Lanereth eased back in the pew and regained her composure, calmly admitting, “Perhaps I did jump to judgment too hastily—but, only because I have learned that when it comes to true corruption, you don’t give an inch and you rarely have a chance to hesitate when dealing with it. Your friend that you brought in, whatever he was, well, it is not what he is now.”
“Nomad has changed over the past few months,” Reza said, her soft voice barely audible above the storm’s fury outside. “It has not been easy for us to watch him changing before our eyes with no methods to cure him of his sickness.”
Lanereth considered Reza’s tone as she spoke of the man she called Nomad. She knew Reza cared for him, never hearing her speak so reverently of anyone before.
“I have confronted devils in high ranking with their dark lords in the past, and he, I feel, has not only been marked by one of these entities, but has passed through the threshold to becoming a powerful tool to the enemy.”
Lanereth was trying to be compassionate, Reza could tell, but her words were all but easing her mind. Reza continued to press, “There must be a cure for him. I owe him my life. It’s my duty to find it if possible.”
Sighing heavily, Lanereth furrowed her brow, considering her words for a moment before taking a hard look at Reza. Reza’s fierce countenance seemed to soften Lanereth a bit more, perhaps seeing that there was no convincing her otherwise to discontinue pursuing her damned quest.
“Tell me how he came to be cursed,” she resignedly mumbled out.
Reza lowered her head and let out a held breath, thankful that Lanereth seemed ready to listen.
“He was stabbed by an illimoth blade—”
“Gods!” Lanereth forlornly chuckled, placing a hand over her face, coming to realize how hopeless a fight her pupil had chosen to take up.
“There is a way to reverse what sickness has taken root, I know it. We saw Henarus, a prophet of Hassome, greatly reduce the amount of taint that had set into Nomad’s body not but a month ago! I know Sareth can do much better through the hands of one of her key handmaidens like yourself,” Reza blurted out, desperation thick in her voice, more so seeming to try to convince herself than the one she spoke to.
“Henarus is a great man—one in high favor with his god. I’ve served beside him in years past, and even for a High Priestess like myself, he is a competent peer to me. And you say he failed to completely remove the curse, and that was a month ago,” Lanereth softly said, adding almost in a whisper, “You are so young, Reza. So sure you know exactly how things are or should be, but so often unaware of how things actually are. You have much to learn.”
Straining to hold back her tongue at Lanereth’s last remark, she pressed on, “You must be able to remove this curse, and if not you, someone else in or outside of our faith. I cannot believe this is an irreversible curse. There’s always an answer, now please help me to know where to look if you don’t have it.”
A quiver in Reza’s voice betrayed her stern countenance, and Lanereth stopped to consider how deeply devoted to this cause—to this man—she was. She had never seen Reza emotionally attached to anyone, not to her peers, not to any of her race, not even to Sareth herself. This Nomad—even without knowing much at all about him, she knew, through Reza’s appraisal of him who had a critical eye above all else, to be an extraordinary individual. One even perhaps worthy of a saren’s protection.
“I can tell you care for this man a great deal, and I would help remove this curse if I could, but he has passed through the threshold of no return. He no longer is human. If it was illimoth steel that drew his blood, then it seems that he’s already completed the transition to become a tool of Telenth-Lanor. He is lost. You’ll deepen the hurt you feel at his loss if you continue to seek to make him whole. We need to put his body and spirit at rest. You need to honor what he would want you to do for him now. There is no return for him.”
As Lanereth spoke, Reza began to clam up, seeing she did not intend to fight in the cause she was committed to.
“You give up as soon as you’re met with the least bit of opposition,” Reza mumbled.
“I remind you, though I’m sympathetic to your plight, I am your High Priestess and your senior, Reza Malay. You do not speak to authority like that.”
Within an instant, Reza shifted back onto the defensive. “Inevitability and fate are masters over you. Regardless if the odds are slim, if it’s the right course, I take that path. That’s the difference between you and I. High Priestess or no, a saren stands for good. That man is good. For you to cast him aside without any effort to help him after all he’s done in selfless service diminishes you.”
For a moment, Lanereth seemed on the verge of lashing back at Reza, but her features slackened, placing a hand over her eyes once more, sighing out, “Oh Reza. What am I to do with you?”
Reza was ready for a fight, but Lanereth seemed so tired just then, so worn out and done with fighting her on every point between them.
“Lanereth, please. If you can’t help me, at least tell me where I can go to get some answers. I’m not going to stop until Nomad is back to normal.”
“You’ll find, even if he was miraculously cured from this taint, that he will never know ‘normal’ again,” Lanereth replied, looking to Reza who resolutely waited for more information on her companion’s condition.
Looking up hopelessly at the cathedral’s ceiling, Lanereth continued, “He is indeed beyond the redeeming touch of any goodly influence, that includes Sareth, but….”
Reza leaned in closer, eyebrows raised slightly in anticipation, finally feeling Lanereth was ready to level with her.
Lanereth continued, “It may be theoretically possible for a curse so powerful to be reversed. I’ve never heard or read about a single case of those inflicted with illimoth poisoning ever breaking free of its pull after they pass through the threshold of life to death, but if it were possible to reverse it after that point, you would need the one who the curse serves to unbind the curse, or for the master to die.
“With illimoth, though, it’s only a substance extremely powerful servants of Telenth possess. That you apparently encountered one of these servants and lived seems unfathomable considering how unskilled you are as an unpracticed saren, but I suppose it speaks volumes as to just how far your sheer tenacity can take you. You never let barriers stand in your way, no matter how impossible they seem to be to overcome—”
“Yes, but we destroyed Lashik. He was the one that stabbed Nomad, so he would have been the master that needed to be killed, right? Why is the curse still present?” Reza hurriedly interjected.
“No, that’s not how illimoth works, if you had spent more time in tomes and less seeking field work, you might know all of this. Illimoth steel is bound to a High Lord of Telenth. They are sort of an avatar, or representative of the Lord of Ash here on Una. Extremely powerful, they come and go, influencing here and there the tides of war and eras. These are the powers my superiors work tirelessly to contain. High Lords can lend the illimoth weapon to their most trusted, and usually powerful, servants. The binding of the victim then is to the High Lord, not the servant. That has to be the case here. Your Nomad is bound to a High Lord, not to this Lashik you speak of.
“The arisen lord…,” Reza whispered, thinking back to the hulking knight that had almost snuffed her out with no effort at all that night which seemed so long ago.
“You…know of this High Lord?” Lanereth asked, worry seeping into her voice.
“If it wasn’t for Isis,” Reza paused, fondling the now ordinary ring she wore that once housed the protective spirit, “I would have died in his clutches that night.”
“You faced a High Lord? Reza, this is no small matter. Why did you not report this to the sisterhood immediately?”
“Why do you think I am here, Lanereth!” Reza snapped, regretting her hasty retort, responding quickly with, “I’m sorry. I just—this whole thing, it’s frustrating to feel like an ant compared to the forces we face. We were so ill equipped to face that monster, even his second, Lashik. Without a number of incredibly skilled allies and last-minute miracles, we would have surely fallen by our efforts alone.”
“My dear, this is not a fight for you,” Lanereth said, overlooking the immediate disapproving scowl Reza wore to the sta
tement. “You have played quite a part if you indeed aided in vanquishing a second to a High Lord. I’m beginning to piece together some recent events down in the Tarigannie region. There’s been wars and rumors of evil forces at work there. It seems the sisterhood needs to pay closer attention to that region in the days to come, and I will see that we provide aid and investigate this growing shadow further.”
“I will lead that investigation,” Reza stated, looking Lanereth in the eyes.
Lanereth scoffed, looking sideways at Reza, “You said it yourself, Reza, you are but an ant next to the awful power of a High Lord. What makes you think you are prepared for a task so important as this? We will let the sisterhood decide who is capable of such a mission.”
Reza knew how long timelines were for intervention missions within the sisterhood, and she knew Nomad did not have that kind of time. She needed to press Lanereth’s hand, or risk losing Nomad further to Telenth’s influence.
“I’m going, with the sisterhood’s blessing or not, and Sareth will be with me,” Reza said, conviction heavy in her voice.
“You go on this mission, and we will not see each other again. You don’t go for any high cause dedicated to Sareth, you go for this man—and you will die for this man,” Lanereth said, and Reza knew by Lanereth’s tone, she was not bluffing, and that scared her.
“Go with me, Lanereth. We could defeat this High Lord and secure peace for the people of Tarigannie.”
“Against a High Lord, I can only briefly defend and ward against. Such a foe is beyond me. I know, I have faced one in the past—one. A Submagis of Jezelethizal, Lord of Rot, the equivalence of High Lord of Telenth. I was young then….” Lanereth paused, searching the past with her distant eyes. “One time I have stood in the presence of an avatar of one of the six evils, and I could but last minutes in her presence. So twisted and potent their power is, even their aura is enough to unhinge their enemies—I could not alone hope to defeat a High Lord, and your presence there would make no difference.”
